Around July 8, 1896

Run, Ed, run. This is what was probably going through Ed Aiken’s mind when he realized that he could not catch Sallie Harris, a young white lady. Ed Aiken was a black man who was on his way to work on Joe Maddox’s farm. Sallie was leaving her grandmother’s home and was going to her home, the farm of J.F. Harris, a well-known farmer in the Conyers, Georgia area. When Sallie got home and told...

Violence was very prevalent amongst people of the Post- Bellum era. A young woman named Sarah Hunn, better known as Fascinating Sarah Bunn, was the most expert thief and all round female crook in the city. While in her room she shot her lover, a black man named Alex Howard, with a fatal wound to the stomach. He died later that night in the City Hospital. She claimed that it was performed out of...

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the Mississippi Constitution's suffrage provision which did not allow blacks on juries as they became ineligible upon disenfranchisement with the 1890 Constitution, in its decision in Ratliff v. Beale. The United States Supreme Court upheld this ruling by making the following distinction: discriminating against race and discriminating against its characteristics...

The Democratic machine was removed from power and the Citizens' League came in, showing how successful their efforts were. They were backed by negroes who supported their cause for reform in mass public meetings. They quickly implemented structural reforms. However, by the time the Citizens' League spread throughout the state, blacks realized that these elite reformers were just as hostile...

In another effort of fusionists to bind the Populist Party to its best alternative, Johnson took up many of the parties issues and thus won their votes. He succeeded in [blurring] the lines between reactionary and reformer' and when he was nominated at the convention he restated the mission of his Democratic Party: It is our purpose to maintain a government in this State, fair and...

Post Reconstruction in the United States brought along many evaluations of the emancipated slaves and their rights, yet through debates on black issues, women's issues arose. In 1896, modern women were taking advantage of the liberties to congregate together in clubs as their husbands did. One evening about sixty to seventy ladies, with permission, sat down together at the club to where their...

On May 13, 1896, the Republican Party of the Second Congressional District nominated George Henry White, a black native of New Bern, North Carolina, for their delegate to Congress. He showed a masterful display of personal strength as he denied his brother-in-law, Henry Cheatham's, bid for a fifth straight nomination. John Fields had appointed a credentials committee that favored Cheatham, just...

Hatred and Prejudice went hand in hand in the late nineteenth century south.The end of the Civil War did not mean the end of oppression and violence.On September 4, 1896, a young black boy was being held on account of a felonious assault on a white girl in the Richmond area.The boy was being held prisoner in the custody of city police awaiting his trial.Following a preliminary hearing at the courthouse,...

A member of President Grover Cleveland's cabinet, and a sound money man,' Secretary Carlisle was sent to calm the gold men in Kentucky who were fearful of all the talk of free coinage. He was expected to make an appearance in Louisville, but to the dismay of many he did not show up. The brooding anxiety between the gold men' and the free coinage advocates pointed to the growing...

A local newspaper in Salisbury, North Carolina published an article on April 23, 1896, reporting the effects that labor-saving machinery was having on their community. The Salisbury Truth article was composed of statements and facts gathered by a person who has given the subject a great deal of thought. The piece described how, with the help of modern machinery, one man and his two sons were able...